OHANA b@ca.on.york_county.toronto.toronto_star 2003-02-01 published
AngelNumber 2!
OHANA -- Malca and Shaul are thrilled to announce
the safe arrival of their 2nd precious son, Eden Isaac, born
on January 19, 2003 weighing 6 pounds 5 ozs. A playmate for big
brother Jake who is very proud. Eden is named in memory of Malca's
ZaidaYitzhak.Proud grandparents are Mania and Nathan
KATZ.
Special thanks again to Dr. Sonia
KURTZ.

O'HARE b@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-09-17 published
VAREY /
O'HARE
Robyn and Ron are blessed by the safe and healthy arrival of
their daughter, Sarah Logan Elizabeth, on Sunday, September 11,
2005. She is a very special sister to Andrew. Celebrating with
them are grandparents Canon
LOGAN and Gail
VAREY,
David and Bonny
O'HARE and great-grandmother Elizabeth
O'HARE.
She is the niece
of Kathryn and Malcolm. She was born at Southlake Regional Hospital,
Newmarket, weighing 7 pounds 10 ozs.

O'HEARN b@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-07-02 published
SIGEL,
NorahPaige
Shannon O'HEARN and Derek
SIGEL are pleased to announce the birth
of their daughter, Norah Paige
SIGEL, on Wednesday, June 22,
2005, a sister for Abby and Henry. Happy grandparents are Mark
and Anne O'HEARN and Deenna and Michael
SIGEL.
Great-grandmother
Rose KAUFMAN is also thrilled with the newest addition to the
family.

OHENLEY b@ca.on.middlesex_county.strathroy.age_dispatch 2005-05-10 published
STOBIE,
KatelynLouise
Big sister Elizabeth would like to announce the birth of her
new sister, Katelyn Louise
STOBIE, born April 27, 2005. Proud
parents are Bill and Sarah
STOBIE.
Grandparents are Robert and
Margaret STOBIE of Strathroy, and Raymond and Sally
OHENLEY of
Ruth, Michigan.

OHLSSON b@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-22 published
Red tape denies baby Sonja her brief life
To the dismay of parents, thousands of births go undocumented
in Ontario
By Carolyn
ABRAHAM,
MedicalReporter,Page A1
Sonja STEFNOVIC was delivered by emergency cesarean section at
Toronto East General Hospital on January 6. She was three days
shy of full term and lived for only 35 minutes, but she did indeed
live.
Before her heart rate dropped and the room filled with medical
staff, before she was pronounced dead at 3: 46 p.m. and a coroner
appeared, Sonja was alive. Boris and Scarlett
STEFNOVIC remember
that vividly, their daughter's pink skin, her generous thatch
of dark hair. Mr.
STEFNOVIC craned to snap pictures.
In the months that followed, the
STEFNOVICs found themselves
longing for tangible mementos of Sonja's brief existence. They
clung to the few photos of their first child and made inquiries
for a birth certificate. Only then did they learn that Sonja,
according to Ontario's official record, had never been born.
Her death had been registered with forms and signatures on the
spot, but not her actual birth.
"The first and only time I ever wrote 'father' was on a death
certificate," Mr.
STEFNOVIC said.
No one told them that it was their responsibility to register
their daughter's birth.
But without a registration, there could be no birth certificate
and Sonja could never be counted among the living.
What happened with Sonja, or didn't happen, is symptomatic of
a chronic problem in Canada's largest province. Ontario has been
unable to keep an accurate count of its own population. The births
of more than 30,000 babies have gone unreported in Ontario in
the past decade. Records of about four out of every 100 babies
are missing. In the rest of Canada, the rate of missing records
is nearly zero. What's more, in Ontario, the latest numbers suggest
a startling in the province's shortfall.
Statistics Canada has found that the births of more than 5,400 babies
are missing from Ontario's registry in 2003. In 2002, more than
2,600 are missing. In 2001, it is more than 4,000, and similar
numbers stretch back to 1996. Included in that are missing birth
registrations for 30 per cent of the babies (more than 200) who
die each year in the province at less than 12 months old. The
number runs between zero and 3 per cent in other provinces.
Experts blame a combination of factors for the underreporting:
unusual fees to register a birth in Ontario, a notoriously backlogged
registrar's office and an unusual lack of awareness. But the
gap has proven to be so persistent that the demography division
of Statscan is now "studying whether they should adjust their
population projections for Ontario," said Leslie Geran, the senior
analyst responsible for processing the country's vital statistics
at the national agency.
"If Ontario is counting all its deaths, which we think they are,
but undercounting their births, they will have an artificially
low population count," Ms. Geran said.
The figures for general population numbers in Ontario, and things
like fertility rates over long periods of time, are still useful.
But as soon as you break the figures down to look at a shorter
time frame, or specific issues related to infant mortality, the
figures are no longer "fit for use," Ms. Geran said.
Vital statistics are considered a key marker of a developed country.
Planning for things like public health, education and housing
suffers without them. Yet Ontario's birth figures are considered
so unreliable that, for the fourth time, the province will likely
be excluded from the national survey on fetal and infant health
conducted by the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, which
operates under the Public Health Agency of Canada.
As well, Ontario's incomplete numbers can distort the whole country's
figures since Ontario births of 130,000 a year account for 40 per
cent of the national total.
"This is how a country, internationally, is judged, on its infant
mortality rates… but we can't count them if there's nothing to
count," said Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System member Arne
OHLSSON, director of evidence-based neonatal care and outcomes
research at the University of Toronto. "Because such a large
proportion of the population is born in Ontario and those vital
statistics are not accurate, the country's statistics are not
accurate and comparisons with other countries will be inaccurate."
The Ontario government is to begin overhauling the birth registry
system later this year. But public-health officials doubt the
efforts will lead to timely or meaningful improvements. In the
meantime, many fear that crucial statistics from the turn of
the 21st century could be lost forever.
To be counted as a live birth in Ontario, the Office of the Registrar
General in Thunder Bay requires two pieces of documentation --
one from the attending physician or midwife and another from
the parents of the child. Statscan is able to estimate how many
babies are going unreported when hospitals report more births
than appear in the provincial registry.
Parents have always been required to register births with their
local government, which forwards the forms to the province. But
not until 1996, after the Mike Harris Conservatives downloaded
a raft of new responsibilities to Ontario municipalities, did
local governments gain the right to charge people for the service.
Since then, 71…of Ontario's 445…municipalities, particularly
those covering urban centres such as Ottawa, Hamilton and Windsor,
have introduced fees that generally run between $10 and $30 to
register births. In Toronto, where 30 per cent of Ontario babies
are born, the fee jumped to $35 this summer.
Everyone -- from Statscan to the registrar's office itself --
warned that the registry fees would lead to unreported births.
"I'm aware of no other jurisdiction on Earth that charges for
that," Ms. Geran said.
Dr. OHLSSON argued that the fee amounts to a profound ethical
"insult."
"It is a fundamental right of a child to be registered," he said,
referring to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. "Without it you are not recognized by the state, you are
not granted an identity or welcomed into society."
A study published in 2003 found unregistered births in Ontario
tripled to 3 per cent between 1991 and 1997. Compiled by Ontario's
Central East Health Information Partnership, it concludes that
those living in places charging registry fees, especially mothers
under 20, and parents of low-birth-weight and preterm babies,
who face the highest risk of infant death, were the least likely
to register their children.
"The missing numbers are not a random sample -- the fees affect
poor people more than the wealthy," said Doctor Allen, who is also
a neonatologist at Dalhousie University and the
IWKHealthCentre.
Since those living in poverty are more likely to have babies
with health problems, it's as though "this high-risk population
is being selectively picked out and it distorts the numbers even
more," he said.
Meanwhile, to encourage parents to register births promptly,
the province introduced a $50 fee for births registered more
than a year after the event.
Experts feel no one can say with confidence if things like teenage
pregnancies are going up or down, or whether birth weights are
falling, or premature births are rising.
"Without [good information] we can't spot trends or do analysis,"
said Catherine McCourt, director of health surveillance and epidemiology
at the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"We don't know the true situation in Canada -- if we're getting
better, or worse."
Initially, it was emotional need that drove the
STEFNOVICs to
seek a birth certificate for their daughter. But they have since
come to see the medical significance of doing it.
The results of an autopsy found Sonja died of asphyxiation due
to a rare form of spinal muscular atrophy. Spinal muscular atrophy
is a genetic disease of the motor neurons that can weaken muscles
involved in both movement and breathing. Research has only recently
revealed key details about the condition, which strikes one in
6,000 babies.
"They originally believed that this form of spinal muscular atrophy
only affected boys," Mrs.
STEFNOVIC wrote in an e-mail. "Then
a girl was born who had the same symptoms and now they know that
it is not limited to male babies. By registering Sonja's birth
and death, her information will help to aid in research and understanding
about this disease."
Most missed births will eventually be caught, since proof of
birth is required to enroll in school and to obtain a passport.
But key details related to infant health, birth weights or gestational
age, could be lost in the meantime, said Doctor
OHLSSON, who is
also a neonatologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.
Ms. Geran pointed out that timely statistics also matter because
"people are making decisions based on the best available information
at that time." School boards, for example, use birth data to
determine where and when to build new schools.
"If you are consistently under 4,000 or 5,000 kids and they are
in certain geographic areas, then suddenly several thousand kids
could show up unexpectedly," she said.
In 2005, a scathing auditor-general's report catalogued a litany
of problems at the Ontario registrar's office, everything from
low morale to computer woes, that had resulted in a staggering
months-long backlog in registering births. Ms. Geran noted the
Ontario registrar has also faced added burdens beyond its control
-- including a surge in demand for birth certificates after post-9/11
security regulations required children to have their own passports,
and it has also been the first registrar to handle same-sex marriage
certificates. One result is that Ontario turns over more late
data to Statscan than any other province.
It wasn't until March, 2005, for example, eight months late,
that Ontario notified Statscan of an extra 4,000 births in 2003.
The federal agency had to "stop the presses," Ms. Geran said.
Instead of Ontario's birth rate appearing as though it had slightly
declined, it had actually increased.
The Canadian Perinatal Surveillance group released a report this
spring outlining their concerns with the underreporting of births
in Ontario, going public with complaints they have been filing
with provincial ministers for years.
But Judi HARTMAN, director of Ontario's Office of the Registrar
General, said she agrees with the group's assessment, particularly
on the issue of fees: "We're singing from the same song book,"
she said.
So why, public-health officials wonder, is it taking a decade
to respond?
"We've been working on a solution for over 10 years," Ms.
HARTMAN
said. "It takes a long time to get all your ducks in a row to
make things like this happen… it required legislative change,
technological change...."
Later this year, she said, the province intends to introduce
an "integrated birth program," now running as a pilot project
in eight locations. The program allows parents, and hospitals,
to complete birth registry forms and pay fees on-line and file
them immediately to the provincial registrar and the federal
government.
People without a computer, she said, could access the Internet
at cafés, the library or other public sites.
The province also plans to eliminate the fees in the future,
she said, after it takes over registering births from the municipalities.
David SOKNACKI, chairman of Toronto City Council's budget advisory
committee, said the city supports the move so long as the province
takes with it the eight city staff members who have been trained
to operate the municipal registry program.
But public-health officials are skeptical that electronic filing
will make a big difference. Even if a new parent finds the time
to use a public Internet connection, Doctor
OHLSSON said, it would
be useless for the 16 per cent of Canadian adults who cannot
read, or for those who cannot read English or French. He suggested
that with the help of a trained clerk, if needed, parents should
be able to register births free and electronically in the hospital,
where 99 per cent babies in Canada are born. The file could then
be sent to the registrar immediately.
Dr. OHLSSON feels such a system would help educate parents and
hospital staff about the importance of registering all live births
-- particularly in cases of infant deaths.
The STEFNOVICs, who have found support through Perinatal Bereavement
Services Ontario, recently met with a few other parents whose
babies had died. When they discussed their efforts to get a birth
certificate for Sonja, the other parents were surprised.
"No one had registered their babies or even knew they could until
I told them," Mrs.
STEFNOVIC said.
Ms. Hartman believes that the reporting shortfall of births after
infant deaths is a complicated story.
"There's a lot of trauma going on, doctors are completing death
registration information and the birth piece just slips through
the cracks and people think, 'Well, the baby died anyway, I don't
need to deal with the birth.' " There's an education component
here," she said. "Also, it's a very sensitive time… the baby
may not even be named and to put papers in front of a grieving
parent and say you've got to name your child [to register the
birth], that's a very difficult thing to do."
Ms. Geran agreed that registering the birth after an infant dies
is challenging, "However," she said, "every other province manages
to do it."
Mrs. STEFNOVIC found that neither her obstetrician nor her midwives
knew if Sonja could receive a birth certificate after a death
certificate had been issued.
She finally learned in April from the registrar's office that
she could. By May, the completed forms were in the mail to the
registrar's office in Thunder Bay.
"I think it… seems to others that it may be cruel to ask parents
to register their babies [who have died]. But in a few weeks
or months, or years, when the initial shock wears off, most parents
want a record of their baby's life, not just of their death,"
said Mrs. STEFNOVIC, who has been checking the mail every day
for Sonja's registration.
The forgotten born
There is a discrepancy between the number of hospital births
reported to the Canadian Institute for Health Information by
Ontario hospitals, and those reported to Statistics Canada by
the Office of the Registrar- General.
Over the past 10 years, since municipalities began charging parents
to register the births of their children, experts estimate that
2,500 to 4,000 babies a year in Ontario have been missed by the
system, for a cumulative total of more than 30,000.

OHRLING b@ca.on.simcoe_county.nottawasaga.stayner.stayner_sun 2007-07-04 published
SMITH,
CharlotteRoseProud new parents, Beth and Darrin
SMITH, are thrilled to announce
the birth of their 1st child, Charlotte Rose
SMITH on Friday,
May 25th, 1: 45 a.m., at Collingwood General and Marine Hospital.
New Grandparents, Gary and
Jo CHRISTOPHER,
Hilton and Edna
SMITH,
and Great-Grandmother, Millie
CHRISTOPHER, as well as the rest
of our family, are overjoyed at Charlotte's safe arrival. A very
special thanks to Doctor
YOUNG,
DoctorOHRLING, and the amazing team
of nurses in the obstetrics Dept. of the General and Marine for
their outstanding care and support. Thank you to all of our Friends,
family, and colleagues for their outpouring of support for our
little miracle, Charlotte Rose.
Page 17